My embarrassing past
I used to be a member of An Taisce.
In fact for a year or two I was actually a committee member.
Those were in the days when An Taisce was our equivalent to the National Trust – a sort of heritage protection group that campaigned for the protection of historical buildings and the like.
So what the blind fuck are a heritage protection group doing demanding parking charges in shopping centres?
It is none of their fucking business.
Is this a symptom of the modern age where we mustn’t be allowed get anything for nothing? Are all these busybody groups searching around just to see what can be taxed even tough it is way outside their remit?
My mind really is boggling at the utter stupidity of this idea. Are they seriously proposing that the charges go to the local councils where it will just be pissed up against the wall? And what’s this crap about hybrid transport? What has that got to do with our heritage? In fact what has any of this got to do with our heritage?
The only reason I can see for this mindless drivel is that they are hoping to step into the vacuum left by the implosion and timely death of our Green Party. I find it hard to believe that an organisation that I was once proud to be a part of can sink to such depths.
The sooner they go the way of the Greens the better.
And I shall be leaving that episode of my past out of my autobiography.
Most of the comments below that IT article agree with you. As do I!
I still can't figure out though what business they think they have promoting this idiotic idea? Unfortunately it's just the kind of crap the gubmint will go for.
You were "once prod to be a part of" it?
*sigh* Well, I console myself that people are hanging off my every word?
I won't comment on your past indiscretion, just to say I am surprised! :-O
I have a rental property split in to four businesses, two shops and two offices and I paid through the nose to the local authority at the planning stage for 'the provision of parking spaces' outside my premises. The total came to over €100,000 and then I had to stump up for a contractor to carry out the works. No extra spaces were ever provided by the authority 18 years on. Each and every commercial development has had to provide car parks in accordance with development plans and all at the owners' expense. Now these faceless do gooders, who couldn't live by their wits for a day, expect the people to pay twice for it.
As for the Green party contamination, I reckon those leeches appointed their buddies to top jobs in many state organisations and they are still lurking beneath the surface.
In my defence, I should point out that I am referring back to the late sixties/early seventies when An Taisce has an honest remit, and long before they started meddling in politics.
All I can say now in the defence of An Taisce is that they are just jumping on the prevailing idea that declares that any problem may be solved by screwing the people for more tax,
Can I please put a dissenting opinion here.
Cork City centre may not be dying but is definitely not busy. There are very many closed down and empty units. If one adds charity shops, the percentage of premises operated by active commercial interests, I would suggest, is less than 50% in some streets.
It costs €2 to park for an hour (or 2 in some locations) in the city centre if one can find a space. Multi-storey car-parks are not much less.
The businesses in the city centre are competing with shopping centres in the suburbs where parking is free.
Cork has two local authorities competing with each other for rates revenue so there are some shopping centres in the county on the periphery of the city. So even if Cork City Council could compel any shopping centre to have paid parking as part of the planning conditions, the county could allow free parking and attract the custom.
GD I am totally with you with regard to the plethora of taxes that now apply. However, I think that at this stage, the cities need to be protected and custom needs to be encouraged. Some r
I think the boat may have sailed in that the number of shopping centres that exist with the planning approval of the council are chipping away at the trade in the city centre bit by bit. If time was back to the seventies and eighties again, a condition such as paid parking might not have led to such a deterioration in the city.
I admit to my bias of being a city dweller for almost my entire life. I like a busy centre (I can walk to centre so that probably helps).
If pay parking is introduced, it may stall the decline of the city centre somewhat but I suspect that more action is required – a lot more concentrated action – if cities are to remain as commercial centres
But the decline in city centre retail can be blamed on decisions by sucessive town planners/ local politicians to banish parking and traffic in town. They have spent years driving out traffic and now are wondering where everyone is gone!
Agreed but something is needed to get that custom back
First of all you have to ask yourself why people have abandoned town/city centres in favour of shopping centres. Is it purely because of the cost of city parking or is it the convenience of having all your shopping needs in one spot? I would suspect the latter plays a larger part. Imposing yet another tax on the beleaguered shopper is not going to drive them back into the cities – it will just be yet another tax which they will have to bear.
I am all for the revitalisation of towns and cities but that is not going to happen without a decent public transport system and/or decent free [or very cheap] parking facilities, and even then it will be one hell of an uphill struggle. Certainly lumping yet another tax will have no effect whatsoever.
Something called Hybrid Transport was mentioned in your post. Does this refer to going back to the horse-and-trap, which modus transportandi faded away in the early Sixties as farmers and others saved enough money to buy sputtering Austin Sevens and other classic models, now endowed with the celebratory appelation vintage cars? And to be truly hybrid wouldn't the animal involved have to be a crossbreed, something like a cross between a donkey and a Connemara pony? (called a conass, I suppose) Transport hybridity could also be applied to nonanimate mobility concepts – a two-stroke lawnmower engine welded on to a three-wheeled bicycle that could carry two passengers for instance. In India I have travelled city streets in bicycle taxis, and the famous black-and-amber scooter taxis, probably invented by a colonial official from Kilkenny. Yep, I'm all for the development of hybrid transport as long as it doesn't have to be funded by a hybrid transport tax.
Don't forget your green nappy on your hybrid horse's arse! 😉
What's needed is something with strength and stamina combined with speed.
How about crossing an elephant and a greyhound?
An elephound?